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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 4, 2024

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President-Elect Trump is starting things off with a major bang, announcing his intention to honor the 250th anniversary of America’s independence by sponsoring a new wave of World’s Fairs.

I’ve been very critical of certain aspects of Trump’s first administration, his personality, his leadership style, his viability as a long-term political force, etc. My support for him has always been qualified and half-hearted. So, I have to acknowledge that he’s hitting pretty much exactly the right button to get me genuinely excited and inspired less than one full day into his budding second regime. Just a few months ago I lamented the ways that the Online Right™️ was disappointing and alienating me. I expressed a desire for a new political coalition that would revivify the sort of ideology and political culture which produced the World’s Fairs of the 1890s.

Well, I’m still far from convinced that Trump’s larger coalition is worthy to carry forth that vision; between liberal states openly defying or subverting the vision and purpose of the project on the one hand, and tasteless red-state hobbits serving up mediocre chintzy slop on the other, there are plenty of potential pitfalls facing this project. (It’s also not exactly unlikely that the United States will be embroiled in a serious shooting war by this point, which would render the whole thing fairly moot.) However, I want to give him very sincere and vociferous credit for this idea; between this and the fact that he (or possibly, by that point, his Vice President) will preside over the next Summer Olympics, Trump will have the opportunity to genuinely glorify this country and contribute to a cultural renaissance. Whether or not he makes the most of such an opportunity is anyone’s guess, but there’s no part of me that can even entertain the idea that a Kamala Harris administration would have been a more capable steward of such a momentous occasion.

The Twitter duped you. This video is a year and a half old.

Is it an AI video? If so, it's the best I've seen (well, subject to the 'how do you know elephants are good at hiding in trees?' problem). I can't find a single off frame or weird verbal cadence.

It’s not AI, he just said it a while ago.